The biggest ever Enterprise Week, a national festival to promote youth enterprise, starts on Monday. Ironically, it comes at a time when conditions are getting tougher for would-be company founders inspired by it. Growth is slowing, credit is tightening and the government is taxing small business owners more heavily.

Enterprise Week, which is funded by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, was born out of Gordon Brown’s fascination with entrepreneurship as a possible means of raising low productivity. According to Treasury studies, “churn” – the displacement of old businesses by new ones – has a significant impact in increasing economic efficiency.